meteors, part III -- robert benchley, my ten years in a quandary and how they grew

my apologies for the abrupt silence in this blog of mine. it appears my brain decided to take a vacation and thus, i have trouble typing things that i want other people to read. but tonight i read a very funny little diversion, and i wanted to share it with you all. it's a piece called "isn't it remarkable" from a collection of very short shorts (i imagine they were newspaper columns) written by robert benchley. benchley is best known for his membership at the algonquin round table alongside dorothy parker, alexander woolcott, harpo marx, and charles mcarthur, to name just a few. there is plenty to know about benchley, as comic writer and actor, but like i said, i'm not typing just now, so i can only advise you to find out more about him.

Isn't It Remarkable?

On a recent page of colored reproductions of tomb paintings and assorted excavations from holes in ancient Egypt there appears a picture of a goose with the following rather condescending caption:

Remarkably Accurate and Artistic Painting of a Goose from Pharaoh Akhenaten's Palace, Drawn 3300 Years Ago

What I want to know is-- why the "remarkable?" Why is it any more remarkable that someone drew a goose accurately 3300 years ago than that someone should do it today? Why should we be surprised that the people who built the Pyramids could also draw a goose so that it looked like a goose?

As a matter of fact, the goose in this particular picture looks more like a goose than that of many a modern master. Just what do we think we are, in this age of bad drawing, to call an Egyptian painting "remarkably accurate and artistic" I don't know, but we have got to get over this feeling that anything that was done correctly in 1000 B.C. was a phenomenon. I say that we have to got to get over it, but I don't know how.

People managed to drag along in ancient Egypt, from all that we can gather. They may not have known about chocolate malted milk, and opera hats, but, what with one thing and another, they got by. And, presumably, every once in a while somebody felt like drawing a goose. And why not? Is there something exclusively twentieth century about the art of goose-drawing?

We are constantly being surprised that people did things well before we were born. We are constantly remarking on the fact that things are done well by people other than ourselves. "The Japanese are a remarkable little people," we say, as if we were doing them a favor. "He is an Arab, but you ought to hear him play the zither." Why "but"?

Another thing, possibly not exactly in this connection, but in line with our amazement at obvious things. People are always saying: "My grandfather is eighty-two and interested in everything. Reads the paper every day and follows everything."

Why shouldn't he be interested in everything at eighty-two? Why shouldn't he be especially interested in everything at eighty-two? What is there so remarkable about his reading the paper every day and being conversant on all topics? If he isn't interested in everything at eighty-two when is he going to be? (I seem to be asking an awful lot of questions. Don't bother answering them, please.)

It is probably this naive surprise at things that keeps us going. If we took for granted that the ancient Egyptians could draw a goose accurately, or that Eskimos could sing bass, or that Grandpa should be interested in everything at eighty-two, there wouldn't be anything for us to hang our own superiority on.

And if we couldn't find something to hang our own superiority on we should be sunk. We should be just like the ancient Egyptians, or the Eskimos, or Grandpa.

cowboy trick at hanlan's point

last friday, the city workers strike that paralyzed the city was finally over after 36 days. while it was on, garbage piled up in the city parks and stink saturated their grounds, people litigated that loved ones were lost as a result of limitations of strike EMS service, and my friends and i pouted, through the quietly outraged whispers of clandestine cruisers carrying carousing tourists, when public ferry service was suspended to the islands.

of late, j had acquired a taste for laying about at hanlan's point beach, where you can choose to wear a bathing suit, or let it all hang out. yep. a nude beach in toronto. and even though i have a framed photo of signage from this beach "clothing required beyond this point" in my bathroom, i had never been since i am not a naturist, or nudist, at least when i am outdoors. but the enthusiasm of my friend piqued my curiousity and so it was that we ventured forth this past holiday monday.

we went late: it was after three, but there were plenty of people on the ferry over. we walked a bit after they let us off at the point, and i stopped to take a couple of fairly typical photos of the island scenery: trees and water and boats and birds.


we walked on and were hailed by a couple who told us they'd found an excellent supply of wild catnip, and suggested we harvest some ourselves. as much as hexter likes the weed, i was anxious to get to the beach and we moved on. soon we reached the sand and we took off our shoes, and i found myself passing the desolate stretch of sand designated for shy sun lovers, and moving onto the clothing optional strip of shore. immediately my eyes were assailed by penises of all types and dimensions, cut and uncut, cute, and uncute, and flopping around for all to see. j guided me through the maze of naked body parts until we found some people who looked around our age, and i pulled out the fuzzy sheet office give-away with plastic on the bottom that had confused me until somebody explained it was an outdoor blanket. that made a lot of sense because the plastic was kind of itchy when i tried to snuggle in it on the couch, and it was a disaster as a blanket dress from minute one. i plopped down on it while j arranged his normal blanket, and we began to people watch.

it should be understood that i went to the nude beach without any intention of getting nude myself. in fact, the idea never even occurred to me. as fond as i am of my birthday suit, it was not going to appear to honour the generic civic holiday. i simply went because my friend likes going and i like to look at naked people. though i suppose there were plenty of people still in clothes on the beach. there were families, and children and all kinds of humanity on the beach that day. but mostly there were naked men. naked men standing solidly, mimicking lazy susans by wheeling their hips in an arc, as they pressed their fists in the flesh just above, and surveyed the scene. some of them reversed status quo by wearing only t-shirts, leaving their cocks out. a lone, nude boy-man spread out close by us sat scribbling with an hp pencil, and he reminded me of somebody i knew that i had never seen naked. he lay down the pencil and picked up a novel for a while but eventually went out into the water to bathe, returning to shake out his towel conspicuously but considerately moving in front of us, ostensibly because he did not want to shake his superfluous naked sand in our faces.

i realized i should not take pictures while the beach was full or i would look like a pervert. so we watched the promenade of people moving up and down the shore, and all their shapes and sizes. some people i envied, and some i feared. the fashion of nudity continued to fascinate, as i witnessed people wearing hats or back packs or fanny packs as their only accessory. at one point i thought i saw a man wearing a condom, but j opined that it looked like a cock ring. on further inspection it seemed to us the man was using a woman's hair accessory to keep his penis from bouncing around. no, it wasn't a scrunchy.

j told me stories he'd heard about assignations on the beach, and we muttered directions and angled our heads in order to point out various appendages to each other. clouds had rolled in and the sun started to go down, and it was becoming cold. and that's when he told me about the cowboy trick.

arresting my eye/i at the toronto outdoor art exhibition

i usually go to the outdoor art show at city hall every year. i like checking out the art, and there is so much of it to see! sometimes i will go expecting to see friends there, and never bump into them. sometimes i know people exhibiting and i never manage to find their booths. this year, there was lots of beautiful stuff, and signs at the tents suggesting that you get the artist's permission before photographing their work (only right and polite). i did take a few photos this year but it's hard to capture all the striking pieces of art that are gathered together here. there is always a great mix of media though i'll usually gravitate toward the paintings. sadly, the piece of paper on which i wrote some of these artists names is not making itself readily apparent so i won't be able to tell you everybody who was responsible for this great stuff. if anybody recognizes an artist, shout out. and if any artist happens to come along and find their art here and would like me to take the photos down, just let me know.

first up some photos of julia hepburn's dioramas. i fell in love with "fausta", a diorama of hers in a boutique, and then saw more at this show last year. i love her projects because they are so wonderfully bizarre and detailed. i can lose myself in her little scenes for a long time and i wish i had some in my house. i really recommend looking at these pieces in the largest image size possible. i can only put small sizes here, or they won't fit on my blog but you can find larger versions of these photos by clicking on 'em.




these last two i tried to get a little closer so you can see the detail of the tiny books..



these next two photos of beautiful and delicate ceramics are just a sampling of great work by an old friend, ms. julie moon. she also gave me one of those lovely poppy pins. i know you're envious.


here's where i start to lose it on the artist names. i have no clue who this was by. it was beautiful though. we saw a lot of painting on plastic? plexiglass? it's interesting to see the trends that emerge at the art show each year. this was definitely a medium that was being used a lot.

i really liked these paintings. the artist had an eastern european name. i think the initials were m.j. or m.r. i love the texture of these paintings. if i was to write a gothic novel i think i would like him to do the cover. the first one of these three was initially my favourite, but now i am leaning towards the third.



corry was a big fan of these bees painted on reclaimed metal cabinetry though after she cooled somewhat and i warmed. i thought it was interesting that he seemed to paint on them as is (spills and stains and marking were kept intact, rather than cleaned off). i want to say the artist's name is brian turnbull? trenchard? but i don't think it is. something like that though.


this was a very popular booth -- mixed media metal art. i can't remember his name. first name started with a t. it was a busy people-filled art show, so inevitably you are seeing shoulders in some of these photos.



these were neat but hard to photograph. again, can't remember the artist's name. the pieces were made of books that had been treated in some kind of wash, and they all these little cut-out windows in them with almost a holographic ghostly image inside. you can barely see the woman in this one peeping out. i am always torn when books are used as a medium for something else (i think the same artist had created a bunch of purses with old hard cover book covers) but these were really allusive, and i liked them.

it was hard to get a clear shot of this fibre art but i thought my bird-lovin' friend patty would like it. it was a like a lovely curtain of hemp birds. i think it won a fibre award too.


i think the initials for this artist were a.o. but don't quote me on that. i really liked this little metal forest. it kind of broke my heart. funny how art is like that. corry was musing on it too when she went crazy for the bees. sometimes you can never understand what it is about a piece of art that draws you to it, and yet it's capable of drawing you close over and over again.

sucker for pop culture that i am, i left these three by jason edmiston, for last. i really enjoyed the fusion of the cereal monsters with the classic film versions -- while it seems to me that those cereals were inspired by the films this painting really makes the iconography meld together. look at bela lugosi/count chocula! and who could resist the creature of the black lagoon in a bubble bath? while i was standing there a boy came along with his mum, and said, "that stormtrooper is the coolest" and i turned to him and agreed emphatically. it's nice that there are always kids at the show, it gives them a chance to see that art isn't stuffy, or stuck up, or always meant to be shut up and away from people. it gets a chance to take a great big breath of open air and saturate one place until it is bursting at least once a year in toronto.

the beguiling: a character

he has the most peculiar personal energy. i think that it's benign but being in his presence is like accidentally walking into a hall of silence. it's as if he emits a dampening field, and your voice is swallowed whole by his calm. or perhaps it's like stepping into a pit that is padded at the bottom, encircled in egg cartons, and just deep enough to blot the sounds above. he carries the aura of a library quiet with him; he exudes it.

it's a curious thing, being around him, or i guess more properly, for him to be around us, sucking in all the noise as he stands there. of course, he will speak quietly of authors he's lured me to but doesn't press his favourites too hard. he wants to know if i read french. he knows about books that i don't know about, and he tells me about them. i rarely answer his questions directly because words seem to resist even being formed when he's around yet he always seems to know what it is i'm seeking. when he sees me there is always a pile to go through, and he always makes me an offer i can't refuse. sometimes i avoid him because of this.

rarely, he hazards a joke (at least i think it's a joke), and i laugh into the well of him, but he doesn't acknowledge i have got it, or even twitch. he has floppy hair he runs his hand through, and rimless spectacles. he's already a character in a book but he goads me to write about him. he has sent me on many journeys, and blotted me out. i like being blotted.

goodreads review crossover 1 - p.g. wodehouse

it appears i can copy and paste my thrilling goodreads book reviews right here into my blog. saves me double duty in a pinch i suppose. i should note that the star convention is goodreads' rating system, and not always satisfactory. in this case, wodehouse gets six of five.

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P.G. Wodehouse

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
another one that draws the guffaws from a disgruntled girl. :) the greatest complaint i can make about these books is about the titles: jeeves' feudal spirit is referenced in other works, so it doesn't really help to distinguish this story from the others. it might better be called "bertie grows a moustache" or "a lot of preamble about a darts tournament we never even get to witness", "how aunt dahlia tried to sell off her magazine because she was tired of always begging for cash". a very funny book.


View all my reviews.

meteors, part II -- muriel barbery, the elegance of the hedgehog

my dear friend patty is reading this book, the elegance of the hedgehog. i read it earlier this year, and was very moved by it. it had been recommended to me by someone else i love. yasmine read this book in the original french and was so happy when an english translation was available so that she could share this book with others.

i found myself strangely reluctant to recommend it when i was done. i was besotted by it, it is true, even though the philosophical aspects of it sometimes drove me crazy. but i was possessed of an affinity for these people and their story, and i cried very hard when it was over, very much feeling that a part of me had died. only one other book, their eyes were watching god, by zora neale hurston, has made me feel this way. i can't begin to read that book without tears unbidden starting to my eyes, knowing the journey, and its ultimate end.

when patty said she was going to read the elegance of the hedgehog, i was anxious, worried that she wouldn't like it, that it would reveal my insipid inspirations. i began it again, and immediately it made me cry, as hurston's story always does and will, and i think it's because these are the stories of people struggling to realize their tiny potential, and in the midst of this the reader comes to know the beauty in their characters, the essence that makes them real to us.

and so i stopped, filled with trepidation; unwilling to submit to their journey when i feel so tenuous in my own small lights. i began it again today, when patty reminded me she was reading it, and after a day that had been been bleak. i had left off here:

And then, summer rain...

Do you know what a summer rain is?
To start with, pure beauty striking the summer sky, awe-filled respect absconding with your heart, a feeling of insignificance at the very heart of the sublime, so fragile and swollen with the majesty of things, trapped, ravished, amazed by the bounty of the world.

And then, you pace up and down a corridor and suddenly enter a room full of light. Another dimension, a certainty just given birth. The body is no longer a prison, your spirit roams the clouds, you possess the power of water, happy days are in store, in this new birth.

Just as teardrops, when they are large and round and compassionate, can leave a long strand washed clean of discord, the summer rain as it washes away the motionless dust can bring to a person's soul something like endless breathing.

That is the way a summer rain can take hold in you -- like a new heart, beating in time with another's.

and it brought me back to myself, earlier on this bleak day, when i walked down the grey stairs and into the lobby of an office building, and saw the dulled sky, and rain beating down, and decided i would walk.

it had been a clear day. i don't carry an umbrella because i have no use for them. i wasn't wearing much, but it was ridiculous to me to take transit to the next stop on my journey. it was only a walk of fifteen minutes, and summer rain is sometimes short even when it is fulsome. and so i strode, in the rain, passed people hiding under awnings who looked on incredulously while others called from cell phones to be picked up.

very soon it felt like i was alone in the middle of the day in this part of the city as i walked on down the avenue, normally littered with people squeezing produce, and dog walkers, and wastrels in the watering holes with side walk patios. and i rubbed my fingers together feeling the rain, so thoroughly wet was my skin, and my hair, and my clothes begin to cling to me, but still i strode on. once i saw people make hats from cardboard boxes provided helpfully by the pet shop owner, and smiled to myself.

i strode on and the rain was warm on my skin and i felt very much a part of it, and we were doing nothing but being, the rain and me, and we were resolved to belonging together. it seems to me that what we knew was barbery's endless breathing though this passage seems to tell of a summer day in its epitome, and this day was not that. and yet i know i know whereof she speaks. i still feel strange about actively recommending this book but i will say she also writes beautifully about camellias, and trees, and film, and russian literature.

behind door number 3

sometimes when i come home late at night when the moon is high and i am alone, i enter the building and feel the last vestiges of the pleasant evening crumble away into the quiet in anticipation of the end. my shoes clap against the tile, reverberate into the silence which seems to edge back, but little.

i stop in front of the bank of elevators. they are presumably empty, these elevators. that they are waiting is certain: pregnant with the expectation that i or somebody else will come and they will submit to our proddings and reveal their insides, mirrored to show reflections of us in grotesque parody.

as it stands, i don't push the button just yet, because i am not convinced there is nothing behind these doors. i know that the world is full of surprises, and not all of them are pleasant. i hesitate, knowing that tonight, as on other nights, there is evil waiting in the elevators, waiting to play the shell game for keeps.

there are three elevators of course. and all of the doors are closed. all three sit waiting for me to press the button to open the doors. inside one there is someone crouched below the mirrors lying in wait. there is a bottle in one hand, a cloth in the other, and the longing for murder in his heart. the knife lies close to it, beating in time. he will use it when he is away from the elevators: he'd like to use this net a few more times yet.

now our hearts pound in unison. he is anxious with anticipation: will my door open? will this be the one? he had heard me enter the building and my feet clap against the tiles. he knows i'm here. he knows that if he is patient, if he is lucky the prize will come to him.

and what's behind door number three? i ask myself. i feel too afraid to press the button now. i am not a lucky girl. monty hall is not here to support me. it's only four floors, i remind myself, and fortune favours the stairs.

as for him: he hears my retreat but does not move. he is content to wait, and see, if somebody else will press the button, press their luck; he'll just see if their number comes up.

archetypes: precision grinding

there was a clanging of a bell and the summer sun warmed me outside in, and i was happy. ephemerally, of course. that seems to be all the happiness i am capable of having: plucking it, and blowing it out, like a patch of dandelions, or birthday candles, until i come upon another moment of joy as burgeoning field, or the next rite of passage.

the bell that is clanging belongs to a truck that has driven me back through the years to the times in my childhood when i first heard that sound. i have a nostalgia for precision grinding which was, is, and always will be what the bell comes to offer. it belongs to the sharpener, the anachronistic man who sharpens the knives. just now he came by in a truck, moving too quickly, not keeping pace with the bell, as the first old man did, pulling his green handcart down the street where we passed our time, tossing frisbees and attempting increasingly higher jumps over a length of knotted rubber bands.

the bell rang and we children could not answer its call. we looked at the old man and his bell, and the cart, and the grindstone in frustrated desire because we did not have anything to sharpen. the scissors we had were plastic and none of us actively wielded a knife. truth be told my mother was still cutting my meat for me. the old man would come and ring the bell and we would all stop the tossing of frisbees and the jumping over of rubber bands because we were drawn to the old man and his bell, dragging the cart with the stone behind him. we would not start to play again until he was some distance down the street because we were watching in the hopes that some neighbour would barge through their front door and stop the old man. they never did.

the day came when that bell rang and i could no longer resist its lure. i rushed into the house intent on stopping the old man before he went along on his way to drag the cart and the stone and the bell through the streets. my mother found me arming myself, availing myself of the cutlery drawer, of every knife contained therein. it seemed very important to me that i should give the man purpose, to make the stone come alive with his foot pedal, and add the spark to the stone to the cart to the bell. i'd never seen the spark because the man was a living relic of a by-gone era -- when getting blades and the sharpening of them was not as simple as it was now. in my own cutlery drawer here in the future lie a few mismatched pieces from the sets that were offered as a premium when you bought x amount of groceries at the store. they don't do that any more. now you just buy cutlery and have done. and you certainly never sharpen it. you buy stainless steel. you buy stay-sharp.

the old man's custom was gone. my mother would not help him. she would not let me bring the knives to the old man. she said it was expensive and we had our own whetstone should we ever need to sharpen a knife. i can testify to this: we did indeed have a small stick of whet, it looked like a grey stick of double mint. and it had been used by somebody somewhere once. there was a groove that hollowed out that double mint that made me distrust it. it was too used, it had seen its day, it would not set off sparks like the grindstone surely would. it was a dull plodding thing, not the spark of a moment. But she would not relent, and i knew i would not be able to meet the bell, the cart, the stone, and the old man's eyes when next i heard the bell.

i heard the bell again today but i did not meet this old man's eyes either. he was driving too fast, racing ahead of the era he evoked. i wonder how he finds happiness in this way, not living in the present or the past but in some strange amalgam of both. perhaps he needs a horse and cart, and a renaissance fair.

archetypes: kolchak the truth seeker

as i've said before, i like archetypes. i am a fan of joseph campbell, and i've always been susceptible to folklore and myth. when i began to read shakespeare i was thrilled by the archetypes of his own creation (hamlet, falstaff are arguably the greatest among many) in addition to his use of ones already in existence; for example, his usage of ovid's characterization of medea to inform his witches in macbeth -- he even actually cribs a few speeches verbatim. but the archetypes of literature are not stuck in the past. we may revisit them but as human culture changes, our archetypes evolve and mutate. chandler successfully applied a knight archetype to his private investigator philip marlowe, and helped hammett solidify the private eye archetype. before buffy appeared, van helsing was the only model of a vampire slayer, and i would argue that now he exists as a shadow of buffy's refurbished, more relateable archetype (i'm choosing to ignore that hugh jackman movie). sometimes the layering of archetypal characteristics into one protagonist is the most beguiling to me of all. that certainly seems to be the case with kolchak.

i've been watching lots of kolchak lately. i have both tv movies, and the television series on DVD, and i find myself drawn to this character again and again. the original character was created by jeff rice, but it was richard matheson (remember him? i am legend?) who wrote the screenplays for the first two movies. for the television series, named kolchak: the night stalker (which is confusing along the same lines as frankenstein: kolchak was never the night stalker himself he was pursuing him, but that's the first movie's name and i'm guessing they were trying to factor it into the title) set in chicago, there was a variety of writers, but the story editor was david chase, the creator of the sopranos. obviously an estimable pedigree, but ultimately while the writing is fine, it's the character of kolchak i can't resist. he is archetypal: the intrepid investigative crime reporter who will do whatever in takes to get to the facts of the story -- what really happened.

in the first two movies some attempt is made to make him human: he has friends, and girlfriends but by the time of the series, the only woman in his life is ms. emily the old lady who writes the crossword puzzles at the paper, and he never changes his clothes: he wears the same suit and hat every day much to the dismay of everyone around him. he says he's a baseball fan but he misses the world series because all that matters to him is the story and he doesn't disappoint anybody by not showing up because he was going to go alone. and if somebody befriends him, they often end up dead.

kolchak is single-minded in his pursuit of information: he regularly buys from a motley crew of gypsies, monks, hospital orderlies, and morgue attendants for autopsy reports, and looks at corpses. if he can trick the scoop out of an informant for free that is even better, and he tries the public relations angle quite often. sometimes he sneaks into crime scenes by pretending to be an authority figure: a doctor, a cop, a health inspector, and sometimes he just commits to some old fashioned B&E. no rules apply to kolchak unless he is forced to obey them by others. he is unscrupulous except when it comes to telling his story.

he never goes out looking for the paranormal but inevitably, kolchak's pursuit of a seemingly routine violent crime case always leads to facts that cause the forces of society to try to stop him: his editor vincenzo who sometimes believes the stories but worries over the trouble they will bring, and the law: over and over again, the police and/or the government oppose kolchak because they are more concerned with maintaining order than telling the truth. and that's the thing about this character. when you first meet him in the night stalker he seems to have a pretty great life. he is a respected crime reporter and he is proud of his ability to get to the heart of the story. but he is brought low because he refuses to twist the facts for the common good. he is convinced that the facts are owed to everyone (i.e. not just the authorities but his readers) regardless of whether they are mentally prepared for them.

kolchak serves no other function than to be a reporter: a seeker of truth who shares his knowledge with "the people". he will kill whatever monsters he needs to kill (kolchak is always being held on charges of murder, or arson, or something as a result of his investigations) in order to find the truth and bring it to the reading public. he uses good people and bad people to get at his goal, and breaks the law as often as not in pursuit of this goal, but i still love him because of his dogged insistence that this is what he is good at, and he is good at nothing else. as much as i love the slicker stories presented in the movies, it is when kolchak becomes a loner seeking the truth that i am truly captivated by him. this seeker of truth character is amalgam of archetypes: kolchak is part detective, part knight, part outcast, part storyteller, part scapegoat. i am tempted to deride or chide him for his childish pride but his chiaroscuro improvisations still make me chortle. and ultimately, i am always on his side even when he's a jerk (taking advantage of the kindness of old ladies, calling women "broads", stealing books from the libraries of exhausted professors) because i too, am convinced that this is his purpose and that is why i can watch his story repeat in cycles over and over again.

review of the graphic adaptation of i am legend

everything that a graphic novel should NOT be, is sadly what the last graphic novel i read, is. i finally gave the "graphic novel adaptation" of i am legend a read this week. angela gave it to me for my birthday since she knows how much i love the novel, and its author richard matheson (writer of some of the best original twilight zone scripts, the incredibly shrinking man, and many other stories, including this, his most famous work). and she also knows how much i love comics. sadly, this adaptation, put together in 1991 before the film came out, and ostensibly reprinted because of it, falls very very short of what it could be.

steve niles was the writer of the adaptation, and i'm sure he felt very reverent about this seminal work by matheson, as he barely cut any text, as far as i can tell. i've read an anthology of short stories by niles that i enjoyed, featuring one of his own characters, cal mcdonald, called dial m for monster. it featured illustrations from various fantastic comic artists, like gilbert hernandez, and niles' future collaborator ben templesmith, but it's not a graphic novel. i haven't read his 30 days of night, done with templesmith, and i'm hoping that when i do i will see something by steve niles that is a true marriage of writing and art that reflects what comic storytelling should be.

this adaptation's text is surrounded by images yes, but it doesn't really integrate the text with the images. the story is told in a straight forward matter and the art in its best moments reflects the story being told at its most basic level. richard neville decides to go to the cemetery and you see him there. in some places there are giant blocks of text describing the protagonist's scientific experiments that have his face, and themed images floating around them. i couldn't help but think that those long pieces of text, if niles wanted to retain them intact would have been better served by being designed as journal entries and broken out from the narrative. and the art might contain his doodles, or drawings of the theory the character is expounding, or conversely, niles should have cut down the matheson text so that it could work. i don't say that it isn't difficult to make this story live on paper: it's the tale of one man struggling against the extinction of his race, and his hopes that he can stop or reverse the disease that has taken his family, and his life away from him. the story is not serving the images, nor do they enhance the text. it is poorly executed from start to finish. i won't say there is nothing redeeming about this adaptation because if it got the novel into the hands of people who wouldn't have read it otherwise, then i am happy for it. but taken for what it is, it is not what i look for in a comic book, or novel, and actually makes me squirm with unhappiness when i think this might be what people think of when they think of either art form.

have a look at sin titulo by cameron stewart: i have it linked here under mo-centric satellites on the right-hand side. it is a weekly web comic that i'm sure will soon see its day in print, in graphic novel form. in this week's page (79), the fourth panel is a close cut image of a bike helmet falling. three words are shown in relief, and their strength is heightened by the art in which they are displayed. that's the kind of expression that makes me want to read comics because there are two narratives entwined which i can't get from reading straight prose. of course, stewart is writing his own story, not trying to serve someone else's, and has spent a lot of time interpreting other comic writers and their text so he knows how to do it well. my understanding is that this is his first foray into writing the comic he's drawing but his efforts are miles above this wretched adaptation.

i'm not mentioning the artist of the i am legend adaptation by name here because i have nothing good to say, except that i hope he's gotten better since this book came out, or that he has found another outlet for his art. perhaps this was his first book -- perhaps he didn't have very much control. ultimately it's not his style i loathe (though i'm not really taken by it either) but oh, the execution. it's just abysmal.

we all know that the term "graphic novel" is really just for marketing purposes. the graphic novel is extended comic narrative, and this one is terrible. the art does not live up to, or is remotely cohesive with the text. thank heaven there are many more, and better, graphic novels out there to read. i will make sure to review one very soon so you know what i mean. or if you're impatient have a look at some of the comics i've linked to. :)

beware of sinking hearts, they might be eaten

my stomach is beating like a heart. i wonder if my heart has sunk into my stomach, and is causing it to pulse. besides this queer feeling of my stomach beating like a heart, which is bad enough, it would be awful for my heart to become lodged in my stomach because it'd be vulnerable to all the other things in there. it'd be buffeted by the ball of bubble gum i have swallowed that people told me not to swallow because it never would digest but rather, lie in wait for the day it could pinball against my heart; (the people who nagged never knew that part).

my heart is not as strong as a pinball of bubble gum or cast iron like my stomach. it would not withstand digestive fluids: bile, and acid, and other unnameable things would corrode it away. i think now i understand this is what it means to eat one's heart out. i didn't know it all started with your stomach beating like a heart. i thought it was just a metaphor, or a reference to a stephen crane poem i adore.

the expression makes sense to me now though i have no idea if what i'm telling you is true. i certainly didn't know it'd start with your stomach beating like a heart. i think now i do.

a list of happy things from just this week!

i want to balance out this blog now since the last thing i wrote is kind of bleak. it's powerful enough to me that i'm going to leave it up but that's why i'm here trying to tap dance my way out of despair now, so i'm putting together a list of happy things to counteract my sad post:

1. good writing: clearly and most obviously i love books and writing or that wouldn't be the main subject for this blog, though clearly not the only one or i would not be making a list. good writing takes me out of my head, quite often full of unproductive worries, and sadnesses, and for that power i am entirely grateful to many writers living and dead.
   
2. buying a new book: i bought one yesterday with a gift certificate i still had from my birthday. it is a deep and abiding joy for me to buy books. i love putting them in piles and running my hands over their spines, and beating the crap out of them as i absorb them though i am sad if they start to buckle under. i don't really much care if they are new, or used, and sometimes i barely register the cover because i'm seeking out a writer i have heard of, either from friends or goodreads or from other books. i don't doubt anybody will be surprised when i say that it was an richard brautigan omnibus i bought: collected revenge of the lawn which i am already reading, the abortion: an historical romance, and so the wind won't blow it all away. yes, i am going through a richard brautigan phase. i'm reading other books at the same time though: a town like alice by nevil shute, and i've just finished steve niles and elman brown's graphic novel adaptation of i am legend -- a review is forthcoming. watch this space!
   
3. unexpected meetings with good friends: my friend jacquie was getting her hair cut in my neighbourhood yesterday. she had let me know that, but seeing her and partner-in-crime jenn standing in my parking lot still put a big smile on my face. i walked over with them to the salon, and then went out to the movies. when i was on my way back, i found the two of them standing under an awning in the rain. how lovely to be surprised by them twice.
4. movies: quite similar to number one except i'm more tolerant of schlock in films than i am in books. i took great pleasure in showing two very lovely friends the miracle that is "they live" earlier this week after jessica told me stuff about kate beaton who we all think is really neat.. david said, i've always heard that line "i'm here to kick ass and chew bubblegum, but i'm all out of bubblegum" and i was happy i could share with them the original tacky moment. i've glanced at the book the warriors that hexter is reading and none of the characters seem to be the same and i suspect there was very little of the book actually adapted to the screen beyond the idea of street gangs journeying through new york, trying to find their way home. i have always loved that this source material for the warriors was xenophon's anabasis, which relates the journey of spartans out of enemy territory. thalatta! thalatta! has also inspired other writers but it kind of makes me laugh that it's probably the only literary thing about the warriors. and then of course i finally saw up yesterday which, even though it made me cry, it made me happy too.
   
5. packages that arrive in the mail: i got a present from a friend named jen in texas today. she is lovely, and the package came at just the right time. she had hoped it would arrive earlier this week but sometimes packages don't arrive until you need them. and i really needed that one. it was entirely thoughtful and sweet, and bacon-inspired, and you can never go wrong with that.
   

so there's my list. i'm sure if i thought harder i could find more happy things that happened to me but to be honest, i don't think i'd feel very happy doing that. right now the sun is pouring through the windows in my living room, and i'm going to go out onto the balcony and listen to the birds and look at my trees and not think for a bit. :)

i taught you to tie your shoelaces

i taught you to tie your shoelaces. your mother said you were too stupid to learn. i said that was ridiculous and that they should have just been patient with you. and i was so proud when you got the hang of it right away. i thought it proved something. but now i wish i did more. but now it seems like it was the only thing i did for you. but now you are so lost, and when i hear about how you are, all i can do is cry and think, but i taught you to tie your shoelaces.

ripe

i was thinking about the word "ripe" today, and how it captures such an epic event: the moment in which something is at its peak before it goes to rot. when we say "the moment was ripe" we mean the time to act has come because it is the optimal time, where our endeavours have the best chance at succeeding. and yet at that same moment, we say "that shit was ripe", an understanding that optimal time is ephemeral and soon it will be over-ripe. that usage is being lost i think as we begin to confuse moments in our minds. ripe is colliding with over-ripe. if you were around an excessively sweaty person, would you think he smelled ripe? or over-ripe? and when the scent of sex is in the air, is that not also ripe? i have the texture of many avocados remembered in my hands as i have sought the perfect ripeness. that moment in time. the ripe time.